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Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Jumping Frenchman Disorder, Black Plague et Moi

My partner in gruesome and ghastly research, Kevin

Way back in college, Kevin and I would occasionally indulge our morbid streaks by perusing diseases in medical textbooks and encyclopedias.

Why?Did I mention that we both had an overdeveloped schmear of the macabre running through our beings? We were 20 and healthy as could possibly be. I was swimming a mile’s worth of laps every other day, walking everywhere and benching 150. Kevin was in similar shape.

Death and debilitating disease couldn’t have been farther away from our realities. We gazed and puzzled over things like Necrotizing Fasciitis and POEMS Syndrome as though they were very odd creatures in a zoo. Things that had no relation to who we were. Oddities.

Who could predict that Kevin would be dead within 13 years from Hepatitis B or that, a year and a half post college -- at 22, I’d be diagnosed with Neurofibromatosis type 2.
Yesterday I had my annual general physical as well as my annual what-IS-up-with-that-brain-of-yours visit with my neurologist, Doctor Scott Plotkin. In advance of this, I did my usual research (Google, the 21st century equivalent of encyclopedia persualing). I like to be prepared for the worst so that I can, well ahead of time, arm myself with whatever I need in order to survive all possible upcoming battles.

You see, I’m pro-life in the real and true sense. I’m alive and I bloody well intend to:

A) STAY that way
and
B) Live every one of my minutes to their fullest

Doctor P is helping me be there, stay there and get even MORE there. I can do this. I will do this because that’s how I’m wired (or ‘how I roll’ -- whatever the cliché du jour is).

Still, I need to go in with facts, fears and concerns written down. Plotkin’s a big horking deal and I want to make every moment of my annual appointment productive and informative. I can’t win if he doesn’t have all the facts or I don’t have all my points of disquietude addressed.

So yeah, I come off as a real worrywart BUT I’m a spectacularly well informed worrywart!